The Once and Future King
by MaryChristmas
Summary: When Sam and Cassandra disappear from a Renaissance Faire, it's up to the rest of SG-1 to find them. However, as they say, the best laid plans...
1. One

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Stargate: SG-1 or the Legend of King Arthur. I'm just borrowing them to play for a bit.  
**Summary:** When Sam and Cassandra turn up missing after visiting a Renaissance Faire, it's up to the rest of SG-1 to find them. However, as they say, the best laid plans…  
**Spoilers:** Anything up to Season Eight  
**Season:** Eight  
  
**

The Once and Future King

**  
  
**Chapter One: A Glimpse of the Past**

The sun shone brightly down on the colorful costumes of the two actors on the small wooden stage in the middle of a stand of trees, making the faux jewels they wore sparkle each time they moved. They were advertising for the Faire, the entrance of which was right behind them. 

"Come one, come all," proclaimed the woman, who was wearing a not-so-authentic Elizabethan gown made of red taffeta, "A glimpse of the past awaits you!" 

"If you dare," the man, dressed in a tunic and leggings of the same gaudy shade of red, with a wide belt strapped around his waste, hissed in a dramatic stage whisper. 

A tall man wearing faded jeans and a black tee-shirt with the exclamation 'Doh!' in big white letters on the front and Homer Simpson being arrested by some guy in a uniform on the back walked past the pair shaking his head. Close cropped silver hair and dark eyes that were almost black glinted as much as the jewelry. He glanced at his two companions, annoyance and amusement warring on his face. Annoyance won out. 

"Tell me again, Daniel," he said in a deceptively mild tone, "why we're here?" 

The shorter of the two men with him shrugged expansively. "Because, Jack, this is the last place Cassy and Sam were known to be," Daniel explained, as if to a very slow child. He had short brown hair and green eyes sparkled teasingly behind a thick pair of glasses. His own clothes consisted of a short-sleeved blue polo-shirt tucked into a nicer pair of jeans than Jack's. 

He turned to the other in their small group. "Right Teal'c?" 

"I do not believe O'Neill needs to be reminded of this, DanielJackson," Teal'c responded in a deep, sonorous voice. 

Teal'c, almost the same height as Jack, was a beefy black man with curly black hair cropped to fit his skull almost like a cap and a dark blue bandana wrapped around his forehead. Despite the loose-fitting long-sleeved shirt and baggy jeans, it was obvious that he had big muscles. An air of quiet watchfulness surrounded him, and despite-or because of-the slight smile he sported, other pedestrians gave him a wide berth. 

"Right," Jack muttered, "What I mean, is, why can't we just give Carter a call and be done with it? I really, really don't like these things." 

"I believe we have already attempted to, O'Neill," Teal'c responded, despite the fact that it had been a rhetorical question, "There was no answer." 

Jack glared at the Jaffa, his eyes narrowed slightly, "I _know_ that…." 

"They probably just lost track of time," Daniel jumped in quickly, hoping to diffuse Jack's temper before he started yelling, "I mean, looking around a Renaissance Faire has got to be a lot more interesting that having beer and a pizza with us. Girls do this kind of thing all the time." 

Jack's lips lifted into an amused grin. "The resident expert, eh?" 

It was Daniel's turn to glare. "What I'm trying to say, is why don't go in, find them, ask if they want to join us and then leave." 

"Well, why didn't you just say so?" Jack asked. 

"I just did." 

"Did not." 

"Did too." 

"Did not." 

"How many?" an annoyingly high-pitched voice asked. Daniel and Jack looked up at the ticket girl who looked like she wasn't in a very good mood. Not that Jack could blame her; it had to be stifling in that booth. And apparently she had had to ask the question more than once. 

"Hey T," Jack whined, "Why didn't you give us the heads up?" 

Teal'c just raised an eyebrow, prompting Jack to grin. Before the girl could ask again, Jack held up three fingers and pointed at each of them in turn. The girl muttered something unintelligible, for which the Air Force general was quite grateful. He had a feeling he didn't want to know. 

Once they had purchased their tickets and gone inside the looming gates, the three of them split up. The first one to contact Sam would call the others' cell phones. Jack watched the other two walk off, and then let out a resigned sigh when a man wearing a jester costume shoved a plumed staff in his face. He really, really hated these things. They weren't anything like the real thing. 

A quick shake of his head dispelled him of such notions and concentrated on locating his second in command and Cassandra. He had no room for those thoughts-hadn't for some time now and hoped never to for a longer time to come. Maybe forever. 

And through all of this was worry. Worry about Carter and Cassy. As blithely as he had taken not being able to get in touch with them, he knew that something very bad could have happened. Normally, he could just shrug it off. After all, what could happen at a Faire? However, normal wasn't normal for him. 

It was a good thing it was Sunday, and his day off. Otherwise he'd be stuck at the SGC, going over personnel reports, trying to sort out why the delivery of Jello was late, and other sorts of boring yet important busy work. And on top of it all, he would be worrying about Carter and Cassy, unable to do a damn thing about it. 

He wasn't sure how long he had wandered around, but he had had time to eat a huge roast turkey leg and two Lemon Chill's and hadn't found the two women yet. Maybe Daniel and Teal'c were having better luck and were just not calling him to spite him. Well, Daniel might do that, but Teal'c…who knew what the Jaffa was capable of. Jack sighed as yet another jester waved a baton about in his face. 

"Look, pal," he growled at the man, "I'm really not in the mood." 

The jester ignored him and continued to dance around in dizzying circles. Jack's annoyance level started to grow, and he grabbed the baton. The jester stopped in his tracks and as Jack stared into his eyes, felt a momentary disorientation and panic. They were familiar somehow, and then the jester was jumping around again. Jack shook himself and chalked the experience up to his recent train of thoughts. 

As he watched the jester move off, something at the peripheral of his vision caught his eye. He turned towards the jousting arena and stared. There, standing in front of the red and white bars that separated the dirt area from the rest of the Faire, was a tall, willowy woman. She had long raven tresses that reached down past her waist, and was wearing a dark blue gown with a plunging neckline that wasn't quite indecent. 

Jack felt as though his entire body had stopped functioning. He wanted to look away, wanted to deny what his eyes and brain were telling him, but couldn't. As he breathed out, one word escaped his lips. 

"Morganna..." 


	2. Two

Thanks to Lady Cinnibar for reviewing. **Chapter Two**

_For as long as he could remember, Arthur had been a wart._

His thoughts turned towards this as he huddled quietly in his bedding in the cavernous kitchens so as not to be noticed by the angry Morgan Le Fey. The mistress of the keep was storming through, smashing what breakables she could and throwing others to the ground in this most recent fit of pique. Sir Ector, the solicitor of Morganna's estate, followed, wringing his hands together in a piteous manner, begging the mistress' pardon for whatever he had done wrong. 

Arthur devoutly hoped she would either calm down and leave before she caught sight of him, or take her anger to a new part of the castle. Morganna did not like him in the least, and every time she saw him, she would comment on the fact. 

"Why is this piece of filth still here," she would say, or "My beauty deserves to be surrounded by more beauty. This child is an ungainly mass. Get rid of him." There were other, more harsh words she said also, but fortunately—sometimes he thought perhaps it wasn't so much—for Arthur, Sir Ector never listened to this particular edict. 

"He is still here." 

Arthur started at the deceptively calm voice, and looked up to find Morgan staring down at him with glittering blue eyes that sometimes seemed to glow. He swallowed convulsively but didn't look away; she wasn't so scary. The worst she could do would be to throw him out on his ear, and to his young mind that might not be so bad. Then the corners of her mouth twitched upwards and he was suddenly very scared. 

"Such an ugly little boy you are, Wart," Morgan said softly, "It's a wonder I let you stay for these ten years." 

"Yes, ma'am," Arthur answered, not bothering to point out that she hadn't really been the one to allow his living at the castle. Sir Ector watched, his hands still wrung together, his face a pasty white. 

"Since I have been so generous," she murmured, "I believe you should repay me in some manner." 

Arthur bit back the angry retort that rose to his lips. He had been working every day of his life as far back as he could remember, from scrubbing chamber pots to cooking meals. Instead, he said, "Yes, ma'am. What can I do?" 

Morgan smiled in real pleasure this time. "There is to be a tournament held within the year. I wish for Kay to enter." 

Kay was Ector's son, and the two would often do whatever they could to please Morganna for allowing them to remain within the castle walls and to keep from being turned into the Morgan's strange personal guards. He was also Arthur's only friend, when Morganna wasn't looking. 

"How does that involve me?" Arthur asked, honestly curious. 

"For Kay to win this tourney, he must have the proper help," Ector said swiftly, "A squire." Then he looked to Morgan. 

"Yes. And you, Wart will be that squire. This way," Morgan's smile turned to a smirk, "Your ugly form will no longer be a nuisance to my sensibilities, and Kay will have a good, loyal servant by his side. You will be loyal to him, won't you, Wart?" 

_Arthur nodded quickly, trying to suppress his excitement. A squire! It was almost too much to hope for, and he was afraid that if he did, it wouldn't happen._

"Jack?" 

With a start, Jack came back to the present and looked around. The woman was nowhere in sight, and he cursed softly. Daniel and Teal'c were gazing at him in concern, but he ignored them. 

"Did you see her?" 

"No," Daniel replied, his brown furrowing, "That's what I was trying to tell you, we couldn't find Sam or Cassy." 

Jack shook his head in impatience and started to elaborate, but stopped himself. It must have been his imagination. A vision of the past brought on by the nature of his surroundings. He smiled grimly to himself. A past he had thought left well behind him. Well, he had no time for it, not when his second in command was in possible trouble. 

"Right, let's check back at her house. Maybe we just missed them." 

"I have checked the parking lot, O'Neill," Teal'c remarked, "And her vehicle was there." 

"Sweet," Jack muttered, "Let's do another circuit and ask around some more. Then we'll call the police." A thought occurred to him, but he brushed it aside. 

Morganna was dead and buried. He had seen to that himself just before…well, he was certain she was no longer living in any case. 

"O'Neill," Teal'c said in warning, looking off into the crowded walkways. 

Jack turned to look where Teal'c was and frowned. The jester from earlier was bouncing towards them at an almost break-neck pace. He stopped right before he could bowl Daniel over and grinned leeringly at Teal'c. The Jaffa tensed slightly. 

"This man has a symbiote, O'Neill," he hissed softly. 

Jack stared hard at the jester, but the man simply shrugged and handed him a piece of paper before bouncing off into the crowd where the trio quickly lost sight of him. Jack unfolded the paper, and felt the blood drain from his face as he read: We have the women. If you do not leave now and never return, their deaths will be on your heads. Tell the system lords, or the Tok'ra that our mistress will never give herself up. Sincerely, The Most Adoring and Loving Servants to Morganna Le Fey.

* * *

sorry this chapter was so short, the next will be much longer 


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